Integrity

"Can we have a sticker please?" the little girl asked for herself and her little brother.

"If you tell me that I have a pretty singing voice and that I've got a shot at being on American Idol, you can have some stickers," Eric replied, bending down more than a little to try and have the conversation at eye level.

The girl continued looking up at Eric, not saying anything.

"All you have to do is tell me that you think I can make it on American Idol. Say 'yes' and you can have some stickers. Do you think that I can be on American Idol?"

The girl thought about it, her little brother looking up at her--unaware that the fate of his stickers rested in her answer.

"No," she said.

"What?!"

"No. Can we have some stickers, please?"

"Well, I'll tell you what. Cause you were honest, and you said 'please'... here's some stickers." Eric unrolled the stickers as he tried to show mock disappointment and rejection spurred on by the 6 year old's brutal and unflinching honesty.

He turned to the mom and, with a huge smile and a twinkle in his eyes, quipped, "Well, there goes my dreams and hopes," holding out his hand with fingers extended, "CRUSHED!!! Oh! What will I do now?!" His eyes focused on his clenched fist, the imaginary fragments of his former life slipping between his closed fingers.

"Well, he asked me if he could be an Idol, and I said 'no'," the girl protested.

Mom couldn't make it

There was a flash of movement that I caught out of the corner of my left eye, then I saw it. The cart came careening towards my register. Only in the last couple of seconds did it appear to decelerate and adjust it's course, but not enough to keep it from hitting the register--though just hard enough to make a bit of noise. The handling of the cart reminded me of the flair and drama a Hollywood stunt driver might execute when,... where was the cart's driver?

I turned my head to look directly at the cart, trying to discern just who had launched the 60 pound, 4 wheel projectile. I saw the top of her head bobbing above the top of cart as she walked behind it and got in line behind the man I was currently helping. The man looked down at her, "Do you have your license?"

"No," she flatly replied, unaware of the humorous intention in his question.

"Well, I guess that's a good thing," he replied. "I mean, if you did have your license and you're driving like that, I'd be a little concerned," he said with an exaggerated smile--again, the humor lost on her.

I kept waiting for the girls parent, or parents, to show up at her side, just getting back from shopping for last second items, but she just stood there by herself, holding onto her coin purse.

I finished ringing up the gentlemen in front of her, and for a second looked over my left shoulder into the heart of the store, waiting for the movement of a parent rushing across the floor to be by the girl's side, but no rushing... just the gentle bustle of normalcy.

I turned my attention to the girl, smiled, and asked, "Is it just you shopping by yourself today?"

"Yes," she replied.

"Are your parents waiting in the car?"

"Yeah, my baby brother's asleep, so mom couldn't come in, so she sent me."

I listened as I scanned the items.

"Did you get everything you were supposed to?" I queried.

"Uh-huh, I wrote down everything she said on the list."

"May I see the list?"

She produced a piece of paper folded into quarters. I took it and opened it. Her writing had taken just about every square inch of the 8 1/2 by 11 inch paper's surface area for the 6 or 7 items. I checked it against everything on the counter. I saw that it was all there and handed her back the list.

"Thirteen dollars and sixty-three cents is your total."

She reached into the coin bag and produced a tightly rolled up bill. She un-rolled the bill and flattened it before placing it on the counter.

"Out of twenty. Do you know what your change is going to be?" I asked.

"Uh, six... no, wait. I don't know. Sixteen dollars?"

"I think you were on the right the track the first time. Your change is going to be six dollars and thirty-seven cents."

"I'm not very good at math--I'm only in the third grade."

"That's OK, but it's important to learn--make sure I'm doing my job right." I punched in the amount tendered into the register and the cash drawer popped out.

"Six dollars and thirty-seven cents is your change, and here's your receipt. Do you want someone to help you out to your car?"

"No, that's OK. My mom will help me," she replied as she stuffed the money into her little purse.

"OK then, have a good day."

"Thank you." She smiled faintly as she pushed the cart towards the automatic doors.

---

In hindsight, it was terribly neglectful of me to let her go out into the parking lot on her own with a cart that probably weighed as much as she did. I'll make sure I don't let that happen again.

The Animal Man!!

We were about 10 feet apart when first our eyes met.

She looked at me intently, studying my face, and I smiled--held captive in her gaze.

She pointed at me and started yelling, "Animal Man! Animal Man!" while looking at her mom.

The mom bent down a little, looking at her three year old daughter, "What do you mean sweety?"

"Animal Man! It's Animal Man!"

"Have you seen him before?" she asked, stealing a quick glance in my direction and displaying a smile that didn't do much to mask her embarrassment.

"It's Animal Man!"

"Do you see any animals on him?"

In a hushed voice the girl replied, "No, but it's Animal Man," her insistence and impatience with her mom's lack of understanding obvious.

"Sweety, I don't know what you're talking about, but you're starting to be rude."

I lost track of what the mother was saying to her daughter as I continued to scan the groceries.

The mom came up to the register and slid her credit card in the keypad.  "I'm sorry.  I don't know who she thinks you are.  The only thing that I can think of is that little dark hair kid in the movie where he's living alone in the jungle with the animals... oh, what's that movie called?"

"The Jungle Book?" I asked.

"Yeah!  That's the one.  I can't figure out what else she could be thinking of..."

I had just trimmed my beard before coming to work, and being fairly familiar with how I was looking at the moment, I just couldn't make the connection of a bearded 6'3" guy in a TJ's crew member t-shirt, cargo pants, and hiking boots with Mowgli, the Jungle Boy.  I thought of suggesting "Grizzly Adams," but didn't.

I looked back to the girl, smiled to myself and wondered just who she thought I was.

---

A few days prior, a little boy was sitting in a shopping cart and kept insisting that there was a cow somewhere in the store, though his mom couldn't see it.  Finally, the mother realized he was referring to a chalk drawing of a cow above the dairy case, on the other side of the store. She was quick to correct herself and apologized, "Oh, now I see it sweety."

These two events, coupled, made me realize two things:

• Children are incredibly and accurately perceptive
• Maybe, we too quickly dismiss a child's perspective as being immature or fanciful

I bent slightly at my back, and with my knees, to set the grocery bag that I was gripping with both hands on the floor next to my register. The golden haired, blue-eyed boy looked up at me and smiled as the bag came to a rest on the linoleum. I went back to bagging the remaining items and talking with the mom while her daughter milled about next to her. I placed another bag on the floor when I noticed the little boy playing with the first bag, running his small hands over it's paper handles.

"That's a heavy bag," I noted with a smile, examining it's contents: a gallon of milk, a half-gallon of chocolate milk and some other light, space filling items.

"I can lift it," he said and proceeded to slip his arm, up to the bicep, through the handles. With a flex of his back and hips he unrested the bag, lifting if off the floor, his body shaking under the strain. He let the bag fall back to the floor, the paper handles coming to about chest level on his childish body.

"Wow, how'd you do that?" I exclaimed, both impressed and a little concerned for his safety.

"I'm a strong boy!" the 4-year old replied.

"Yeah, you are."

"I'm a strong boy," he repeated, again slipping his arm through the handles, up to the shoulder, and lifting the bag-- this time with greater ease, pushing up onto his to toes for added effect. He set the bag down, his smile showing the pride he had in his accomplishment.

Not one to be outdone by little brother, his sister came around the corner and assessed the situation.

"I'm a strong girl."

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah. I can lift... my mom and my dad!"

"With what, a fork-lift?"

"No, with my hand," as she displayed the hand, raising it above her head.

"Wow, you are strong."

I turned to look at the mom who had been silently watching with a smile.

"What are you feeding them?!," I joked, looking at the assortment of groceries on the counter that still needed bagging.

She looked at the groceries herself and broke out in laughter, exclaiming, "Really!" and shaking her head in amusment at her children.

Fleetin

Our customer was a man in his early 40s, accompanied by his 6 or 7 year old daughter, and his mother and father. Matt started ringing up their items. While I was bagging I listened to Matt talking and joking with the lively and interactive little girl.

"Can you hand me the onions please?"

"Sure" she responded with a smile, lifting the onions up to Matt's waiting hand above the scanner.

"Do you know what kind of onions these are? Are they white onions?"

"No," she said, starring at their red skins.

"Not white, huh. Are they, 'Blue Onions'?"

"No."

"Yeah, 'Blue Onions' doesn't sound right, does it?" Matt asked, smiling.

"No, I don't think so," her giggle and still constant smile exposing some missing front teeth.

I kept bagging their groceries and Matt totaled their purchase. The man swiped his credit card and signed the electronic touch pad. The register began patiently printing out the receipt—item after item marked, quantified, and priced—as the paper emerged, slowly growing longer and longer. The man moved over by his father, and his daughter joined him at his side. The register scored and cut the receipt and Matt handed it to the little girl. As she inspected it and put it on the counter, her grandmother lovingly said "Give it to Grandpa, honey." The man took the receipt, about to fold it and put it in his pocket when his daughter remarked, "Hey, you're not Grandpa!" and then after a slight pause, "But you will be soon." The grandparents chuckled and her dad looked down at her, smiled and said, "Someday."